Sword Saint

Swing.

Swing.

Crash.

I grunted as I swung the training sword. I had painstakingly carved it myself, stroke by stroke. It wasn’t truly enough to cut flesh like the holy sword I once wielded, but it would cause damage if it hit, and it was more than enough to be counted as a sword by the system. The systems changes to my attributes had aged it more rapidly, enabling much finer motor control and strength than should be possible. At morning, I would carry water to and from the stream, and to many of the more elderly neighbors in the village. By noon I would tend to our families only cattle. The afternoon I spent in the woods, relentlessly training my stats. Day in and day out, from the time I could walk, I repeated this cycle until my hands were blistered and sore, and then I pushed myself even further. Sweat dripped away from my body. I adhered the wooden sword to my waste, sliding it into my leather belt.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

My family here were too poor to afford metal, and it was rare to come by in a village this small, consisting of only a small medley of houses. They say that living in the woods, separated from your pains, was good for the soul. Living here to me, was like a festering wound. Every day the Emperor lived was a day that I suffered. It consumed me totally, and so I threw myself into my training.

Sword Skill: Slash has progressed to rank 9

This was my only source of joy. Progression to my goal. Revenge. I walked to the two resting tree trunks, cut in a perfectly straight line, and heaved one of each under my arms, before methodically dragging them back towards the town. I met my family here in my previous life. A man in the woods, defending the woman who would become his wife from a monster attack; John Mercy. Through pure luck, our party stumbled upon them while lost in this forest. They housed us; fed us. Purely out of the goodness of their hearts. The uncut branches of the trees scraped against the ground behind me, finding the trough that I had dug into the ground from dragging trees through this path hundreds of times. Only a few more and we would complete the wall around the city, protecting it from any further monster attacks.

I stared forward towards the city, through the dense foliage. I recognized a scent, so familiar, yet worlds away, making me stop in my tracks. Flashbacks flitted through my mind. Images of demonic raids on human cities, pyres of flesh and wood reaching up towards the sky. I dropped the logs and began to sprint to the village, still some distance away, only stopping when I saw the pillars of smoke rising into the sky. Without hesitation, I ran towards the villages half constructed walls, dashing along the outer edge until I came to a break in the wall. Ben’s hollow, lifeless eyes stared back at me from a pile of corpses, left bleeding in the sun.